


in new light

by kimaracretak



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, D'Qar, F/F, First Meetings, Foreshadowing, Jyn Erso Lives, Kyber Crystals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 09:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16910724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Jyn has seen more than enough death to know what walks alongside Rey.





	in new light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookykingdomstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/gifts).



General Organa gives her a day.

Only one, while the ship is prepared and supplies gathered and plans made. It's all they can afford, Rey and the fighters she's inextricably bound to now, but it's still a day. A day when she isn't scavenging, isn't fighting, isn't running for her life, and it's barely an hour until the restlesness becomes unbearable.

It's that restlessness that drives her to the edge of the woods, where the humid air clings to the few bits of skin she's left exposed to D'Qar's less-lethal sun and the warm green and brown of the trees stretch forward into an infinity that could hold its own against any desert challenger.

_So much green_ , she'd thought on Takodana.

_So many kinds of green_ , she thinks now, watching the leaves flutter against each other in the morning breeze. Each movement ripples outwards, the overwhelming song of life brushing against Rey's mind in the Force, almost threatening to overwhelm her.

And beneath the green, something else. Something familiar, that she'd only felt once before: in Maz Kanata's castle.

It's that that draws her forward, the echo like a second heartbeat under her ribs, something not quite a voice. So Rey opens her eyes, and walks further into the green.

She loses track of time under the branches, or perhaps time loses track of her. All of her awareness condenses down to the feeling of sweat beading on her forhead, the overwhelmingly rich scent of the woods in her nose and at the back of her throat, and the sight --

\-- the sight of a woman, dressed in green and black and leaning against a tree so casually that Rey might have mistaken her for a part of it, were it not for the thrill of recognition, for the way her awareness comes alive all at once, her pulse throbbing in her fingertips.

Rey stops, her feet planting themselves into place almost before her brain has had a chance to catch up with them. This, she knows with a certainty she can't name, is what -- who -- she was looking for.

"Oh," the woman says, and Rey's heart beats faster at just the sound of her voice. "It's you." There's a gravity to her that Rey hasn't sensed anywhere else on the whole planet, not even in General Organa, and it makes her feel as if she has something to prove.

"I'm," she starts. "I'm ... Rey" She's never spoken her own name so many times in her life as she has the past week.

The woman laughs as she steps forward into the golden light, her voice warm and rough with age. As the speckled shadows of the leaves fall from her figure, Rey can see that the skin of her right cheek is pulled taut into a long, twisting burn that disappears into her high collar. A scar that stories were clear could only belong to one person.

"Jyn," Rey blurts out before she can stop herself. "Jyn Erso." The only survivor of Scarif, once tipped to be Mon Mothma's right hand before disappearing into the depths of the New Republic intelligence service, never to be seen again.

Rey was used to Jakku's ghosts. She's still coming to terms with those unmoored from their places in history holos, those who, like Jyn, move to take her hand.

She can feel Jyn's heartbeat against her palm, even as her eyes drop to the valley between Jyn's breasts and there, the softly glowing crystal pendant.

She's dreamed of the necklace. She's never dreamed of Jyn.

It is not, in the end, the worst thing she's learned since leaving Jakku.

"Oh, Rey," Jyn says softly, and Rey can't meet her gaze. "They want you to be a light, don't they?"

Rey is too used to the desert to cry, but her throat tightens as she nods. One of the brightest lights of the Rebellion is standing before her, and she doesn't know how to admit she has no idea where to begin.

"You don't know how, do you?" Jyn continues. The hand that isn't holding Rey's reaches out to cup her cheek, and it takes everything Rey has not to lean into the touch. "You think you're too close to death."

"I don't mean to be," Rey says. Her eyes flutter shut, but she knows it will do nothing to stop Jyn's truths. Has known, since the moment she set eyes on her, that they're too much alike. "I don't know how to be anything else."

Jyn's calloused skin is warm against Rey's. She thinks she's forgotten how to move, anchored between the ground and Jyn, and all around them the undeniable energy of the Force unwilling to be contained in Jyn's pendant.

She doesn't know why she asks the next question. "Will it ever be different? Will I ever be like ... like you?"

She wants to be like Jyn. She wants to never have met Jyn. She wants Jyn. She wants--

Jyn snorts, though not unkindly. "Sweet child. Death is a jealous friend, and an unfair one. But I can see already how much he loves you. The people you carry, the ones you've given him..."

She trails off, her voice almost unbearably sad. "It's hard to tire of him but not your ghosts. To tell him he can no longer have your anger. But if you do, then yes, you might end up like me."

Rey isn't sure that's a good thing, just as she isn't sure Jyn thinks it is. But it's a moment of clarity, one of far too few over the past days, and in the moment, in Jyn's hands, it feels like almost enough.


End file.
